POLL IN THE KEY OF LIFE

Soooo "Another Star".

"Isn't She Lovely"? Too obvious?

"Pastime Paradise". Which is brilliant even though LV - and later Coolio - tried to destroy it close 20 years later. "Joy Inside My Tears", "Love's In Need Of Love Today" and "Village Ghetto Land" are also brilliant, and you gotta love those Yamaha CS80 string sounds!

The two singles here are often way overrated when compared to most of the rest of the album.

Weren't there 4 singles off this album? (I Wish, Sr Duke, As and Another Star)

Ja.

XP I thought about the two most famous ones, but "Another Star" isn't any good at all. "As" is a great song though, at least until it speeds up towards the end.

Coolio ruined Pastime Paradise for me. Coolio... and Michelle Pfeiffer. Though relistening to it, it is a pretty fucking great song.

I'm gonna stick with Isn't She Lovely, tho. Cause it's absolutely lovely.

Both "Pastime Paradise" and "Gangsta's Paradise" are great. Don't be a mentalist.

I'm not saying Gangsta's Paradise is bad. Just that I can't listen to the original without hearing it.

This list was gonna make me insane so I just went with my gut and voted for "I Wish" because it has everything I ever wanted in a single and it was #1 and made my 10 year old self dance all over the place.

"as" is one of my favorite songs of all time. it gets teh vote.

Weren't there 4 singles off this album? (I Wish, Sr Duke, As and Another Star)

those are my favorites on the album. voted for "as".

"Isn't She Lovely" is lovely - and might have won my vote, if it weren't for the annoying baby noises in the coda (yes, I know, who could hate on baby noises? - I have a heart of stone, I guess - I could also do without the harmonica solo).

"Both "Pastime Paradise" and "Gangsta's Paradise" are great. Don't be a mentalist."

That video (and Michelle Pfeiffer) is awful. It does kind of ruin the latter for me. Nothing can ruin the former though.

Am I wrong in saying the ep kind of sucks? "All Day Sucker" is kind of its saving grace.

Heaven help ILM if "Joy Inside My Tears", "Love's In Need Of Love Today" or "Village Ghetto Land" gets more votes than "Summer Soft."

"Joy Inside My Tears" and "Village Ghetto Land" are two of my favorite songs on the album.

And "Love's In Need Of Love Today" is mine

Am I wrong in saying the ep kind of sucks?

Not at all. I usually stop befor the EP tracks. The album is long enough already, and the EP tracks aren't worth the wait.

And XP those are all wonderful ballads. Precisely what Wonder is best at.

Yeah, those aren't exactly my three least favorite songs on the album (well, except for "Joy Inside My Tears," which is ... sorry Reverend), but I was obviously being pointed.

Geir, you and I probably agree a lot on what are Wonder's best songs (i.e. "You and I"), but you'd have to be willfully, stubbornly against all things rhythm to have a problem with "Another Star." That bridge is every bit as gorgeous as the last minute of "You and I" or "Lately."

Anyway, "Summer Soft" is the song that got me seriously into Stevie, so it has that nostalgic value going for it. (Go figure, it's a song about nostalgia and the swiftness of time!)

My least favorite major Stevie album ("If It's Magic," ugh). "Knocks Me Off My Feet" for me.

Am I wrong in saying the ep kind of sucks?

Saturn and Ebony Eyes are great! I don' care much for the other two. I Wish is definitely my favorite song on the album. Then As and Summer Soft.

Yeah, never front on "Ebony Eyes" y'all.

this Ebony Eyes >>> that Ebony Eyes

i totally just thought this said "pocky in the key of life"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Pocky_strawberry.jpg/300px-Pocky_strawberry.jpg

My vote went to "Another Star," though if you'd asked me in fall 2001 it would have been "Love's in Need of Love Today."

Songs that I predict will get 0 votes:
"Contusion" (Wonder) – 3:45
"Ngiculela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing" (Wonder) – 3:48
"If It's Magic" (Wonder) – 3:12

Songs I might add to that list:

"Have a Talk with God" (Hardaway/Wonder) – 2:42
"Ordinary Pain" (Wonder) – 6:23
"Ebony Eyes" (Wonder) – 4:08
"Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)" (Wonder) – 3:56

Then again, I never know which polls are going to generate 10 votes and which are going to generate 100.

"Sir Duke," duh.

Not that I'd vote for it but "If It's Magic" doesn't deserve 0 votes. I have never accepted the hatred that people meet when they try experimenting with pre-rock popular music genres (see also "When I'm 64" and "Honey Pie")

pipecock OTM for once. "as" is sooooo good.

i'd also rank "black man", "sir duke" and "contusion" up there with it.

"as" is the masterclass in changing gears from ballad to dancefloor though there's a few other stevie wonder tracks that pull off the same trick

Nobody changed gears from slow to fast (although not neccessarily particularly dancefloor) like the mid 70s incarnation of Genesis :)

"Sir Duke," duh.

Agreed. Lotta great songs on this record, but Sir Duke is unbeatable. It's gotta be one of the most joyful songs ever committed to vinyl. Funnily enough, at least a couple of other songs that would make it on to such a list are Stevie ones as well.

I also love how it's essentially a song about music. ILM.

"Sir Duke" is nice, but I don't see why "I Wish" is supposed to be so great.

C'mon. Who doesn't get nostalgic about being spanked?

Steve Wonder's parents didn't spank him when they wanted to punish him. They rearranged the furniture in his room.

"I Wish" is the best thing he ever did, so there.

"Songs in the key of life" is a weird one for me, because when i first heard it, I was kinda meh, then I went through a six month period when i was convinced it was the greatest thing ever recorded, and then i drifted back into benign indifference.

This is a very hard call, but in the end I went with As, although I could just as easily have gone with Sir Duke, I Wish or Another Star or maybe even Knocks Me Off My Feet.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"I Wish"

I have to admit, Happy Feet killed a small piece of my love for "I Wish."

"Wild Wild West" did even more to destroy whatever enjoyment I might have had of it before.

"Knocks Me Off My Feet" just gets me everytime.

I love that chorus.

Those pre-auteur singles are great to incredible.

like Marvin Gaye, Stevie could've died in 1970 and still been remembered as a great singer

If you can find this compilation on vinyl, get it. It's got all the highlights.

ty I don't have a record player but I can find the audio

Honestly, a lot of the album cuts from those early albums are great, too. The more James Jamerson, the merrier!

"If It's Magic" and "Have A Talk With God" both deserved votes, but with such wall-to-wall excellence some things had to get overlooked

“knocks me off my feet”

damn I love this album

I've always assumed saturn was a nod to sun ra (fellow auteur / synth pioneer) but I haven't seen any confirmation. they had to be aware of each other. the lyrics a characteristically more cuddly but feel like a spin on an outer spaceways / we'll wait for you type thing

as much as i love sun ra and stevie wonder, this seems highly dubious. sun ra was pretty obscure back then (and now, honestly) and his private press record label even moreso

besides, outer space / ufo imagery is pretty common in pop music. marvin gaye did “funky space reincarnation” the same year, and this was around the time that norman whitfield was getting heavy into ufo stuff, though his all-time-great ufo believer anthem “space machine” (from undisputed truth’s “smokin”) was still a couple years away (1979). there’s other examples but you probably get the point

this album has more excellent songs than most manage in their entire lives

big fan of "saturn" myself as well

dunno if it would be my #1 pick on here but top 5 sure

"Pastime Paradise", "I Wish", "Knocks Me Off My Feet"

There are just sounds that are inherently euphoric and this album is those

honestly saturn is prob my least favorite song on here. and it's still a very good song!

Pastime Paradise was my favourite for years until Sir Duke overtook it in recent years.

Secret Life of Plants is indeed excellent.

Am I the only person on earth whose favourite Stevie song is from the 90s? (Chemical Love)

You might be. "Feeding Off the Love of the Land" is my '90s Stevie pick.

"Chemical Love" is catchy as hell.

Around 2011 I used to annoy a student at the office by playing "Chemical Love," a cut from Agharta, and Disco Inferno.

Three of my favourite things right there

I used to annoy my college roommate with Basement Jaxx's "Being with U"

I definitely think the Jungle Fever soundtrack is his best album post-Hotter Than July.

you and I, dear, are unusually aligned this morning -- killer to killer

Yeah it's fantastic. Just this week I encouraged my friend to hear it.

Cover band nailed it last night. 15 people, horns, backing vocalists, etc. My buddy (50) and me (hovering under 50) were impressed that we were not only still among the youngest ones there, but surrounded by so many people that knew every single word by heart. My friend figured it out fast. "Dude," he said (he starts a lot of sentences with dude), "I was born in 1973. A lot of these people are 10 or more years older than me, which means Stevie was hitting his stride right at their childhood sweet spot. This is their formative music." And he was right. So many joyful people, fun to watch the way Stevie's songs just lit them up.

The trivia of the night was that three people on stage (mostly session players and the like) had actually shared a stage with Stevie before. One was in the choir for the local "Songs in the Key of Life" tour stop. One played in the band at Aretha Franklin's funeral. One played with Stevie Wonder at the Kennedy Center back in 1999.

Etsy has the T-shirt btw

https://images.app.goo.gl/FGXA3PGe8sq6qoc16

Gah. It’s on Etsy anyway.

Tracking this thread and going down Stevie rabbit holes, I am realizing that there are exactly zero Stevie live releases between 1970 and 1995! How on god's green earth did that happen??

Supposedly a live Stevie/Stones album was planned in 1972, but was obviously never released, likely owing to the complexities of navigating how Motown's (or Atlantic's) biggest act could appear on another label.

Also, there was tons of friction between the two acts at the time

Natural Wonder is so fuckin' good though, especially "Ribbon in the Sky" at the Sky Fallin' section at 6.07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHETurMoVVo

Even though it's not a patch on the decades prior, i will also rep for a great deal of Conversation Peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tI8j6Ma394

Was listening to the previous album today and enjoying it! Really great spiky keyboard style, feels very unusual and even experimental for such a huge act. Sorry to repeat what everyone's known for 50 years lol

what is "the previous album" in that sentence?

for pre-70's stevie: Uptight, Down to Earth, I Was Made to Love Her, For Once in My Life and My Cherie Amour are all chockablock full of necessary tracks and only rare missteps. Plus you get to hear him cover "Light My Fire" on harmonica!

Fulfillingness' First Finale I mean

Summer Soft and Ordinary Pain also ones to not overlook

Fulfillingness is solid gold stuff

Maybe it's covered somewhere in one of the books about his career, but it's still a huge mystery to me that "As" and "Another Star" underperformed so much as singles (both stalling out in the 30s).

Most listeners already had the album by the time those singles came out, nearly a year after the album.

That's plausible. Also, if neither song was cut down from their 8-minute fullness, that'd be tough to slot.

"Another Star" was, according to Aletti, a pretty massive disco DJ hit.

"As" was part of enough childhoods for Mary J. Blige and George Michael to cover it.

That's what sort of spurred the question, the fact that their cover may have been a bigger hit overall than the original

Which, as much as I love GM and MJB, seems like a historical wrong

I’m just hoping Alfred has reconsidered his untenable position on “Summer Soft” over the past decade.

I do not fuxx with anyone who can't get with "Summer Soft"

I’m just hoping Alfred has reconsidered his untenable position on “Summer Soft” over the past decade.

― Naive Teen Idol,

if it's magiiiiic

If it's boring

I've reconsidered my untenable position